Ragged Road

Sunday, July 30, 2017

I've been enjoying the RPG mapping community lately. There are a lot of helpful, generous, creative people making all kinds of fun, free maps for RPG's that I got a little excited and decided to try my hand at mapping, something I haven't done for years.

To create the ruin I wanted to map, I used the ruin generator from Other Dust. This is about as good a generator as you can find, and it gives just enough detail to spur the mind to new and interesting avenues. I rolled on the Ruin Origins table and got Suburban Wreckage. I thought immediately of Sanctuary Hills in Fallout 4, the first settlement the vault dweller encounters in the game. Sanctuary Hills is a ruined cul de sac, full of interesting back story and useful items and work stations.

I then rolled on the Ruin Destruction table and got Decay. Ruin destruction tells what put the ruin in its current state. Basically, the place was quickly abandoned and then went to seed. So I've got an abandoned cul de sac with buildings that are in various states of dilapidation. Hm.

Next came the Ruin Inhabitants table, on which I rolled Beasts. The first thing that came to mind was an insect infestation: heritor bugs (the Other Dust version of PostApoc cockroaches), maybe an ankheg or rhemoraz (because D&D monsters are great for Post Apoc monsters as well in OSR games). Things are coming together. I have an abandoned residential area in a state of deep decay populated by monstrous bugs. Nice.

Last came the Ruin Tags. Tags are one of Kevin Crawford's genius inventions, and basically are an evocative word or phrase combined with a number of variables like Friend, Enemy, Secret and Complication. The tags I rolled up were Mad Scientist and Doomsday Countdown. Things are about to get funky in the cul de sac.

I decided that the Mad Scientist is a recently thawed-out military officer who has been mutated into an insectile creature with the ability to control and summon bugs. Think Immortan Joe meets The Fly. His mutation has driven him mad and he wants to overrun the world with insects. He has to finish brewing a pheromone bomb which he intends to detonate under the cul de sac, sending the massive colony of bugs that live there into a killing frenzy, cleansing the world once and for all of the evil influence of man. The Mad Science tag led me to decide that he has been experimenting with human subjects, in order to make the pheromones trigger only a certain type of murderous behavior on the part of the insects.

The story elements were in place. Now I needed stats for the Mad Scientist (that's next week's post) and a map.

I googled Post Apoc RPG maps, and found a few neat things (random ruins,random wasteland) but nothing really fit the bill for a pre-fab housing developmet. Then, it hit me: Google Earth was loaded with top down views of all kinds of places from residential areas to industrial and military complexes. I started looking around my location and sure enough I found a cul de sac with several large homes perfect for the lair of the mad military scientist and his insect horde.

I took a marker, graph paper, and copied the layout. Then I added details, including some random elements for exploration because you should be able to use and reuse a cul de sac map; they're all over the place and they're all similar. Here it is:

Not quite Sanctuary Hills

It's not the prettiest, but it's done and I can re-use it. Random rolls can tell me which buildings are explorable and I can populate them with critters and loot via the Other Dust random tables as well.

How do you find make or find maps for your post-apoc games? Leave a comment below!

Thursday, June 22, 2017

This is an illustration I did for a Savage Worlds post-apoc idea a while back. The character is named Charlie Crow, and he's a Nuid, a protector of life in Nu Earth. His companion is a four-eyed pig with a high Smarts and the Alertness feat. Charlie could fit into any Post Apoc campaign, including the new Mutant Crawl Classics game by Goodman Games. Here's a link to a larger image of Charlie and the rest of my Deviant Art gallery:

Saturday, January 21, 2017

This video provides so many cool ideas for PA rp'ing: Strong language: NSFW

My mind sparked off this, because it's such a ridiculous and simultaneously slightly dangerous situation. Here are five ideas for PA gaming based on this amazing video:

1. A gear trap, that ensnares a valuable or essential bit of loot already in the PC's possesion, could be a fun or annoying challenge. The passersby, were they approaching hostiles, would ramp up the situation and turn it from comic to tense.

2. The "damage" from the fence is light, but intimidating. Single hit points wouldn't bother a hard character but minor conditions, or a -1 to all rolls per jolt, wearing off in time, could be interesting.

3. The "cool gear in a difficult to reach place" doesn't have to be a dungeon. It could be half a motorcycle sticking out of a rubble pile or the aftermath of a landslide...or wrapped up in a an electric fence. This type of thing could be a random encounter.

4. The damage/challenge could be ambient: radiation, a la Fallout, with treasure on top of a mound of radioactive waste barrels, or in the midst of a lair of a swarming pest or insects, could provide a fun and recurring challenge. (You got the motorcycle out, but it's still radioactive or infested with radioactive ants.)

5. There could already be a group trying to extract the gear or treasure from the obstacle, providing an opportunity to role-play, parlay, or have a fight over something that could be damaged in the dust-up, preferably with a huge explosion (again, a la Fallout.)

Sunday, May 8, 2016

I love the Mad Max films.
Their action scenes are gritty, senseless, depraved and violent. Chaos
rather than competence wins the day; the heroes are more lucky than skilled.

Adrenaline dice are a sub-system of vehicular combat that
promote chaos and mayhem. Players roll the adrenaline dice at the beginning of
each segment of combat (turn, round, whatever your system calls for.) Each instance of doubles on the adrenaline
dice allows the player to call for another driver to make some kind of
roll. It can be a save, a driving roll,
whatever. It has to be narratively
consistent (no whales dropping from the sky) but it can be a result of anything
that makes sense within the narrative framework of a post-apocalyptic world
(including mutant creatures erupting from the ground, pits opening under the
combatants, and the sudden appearance of dangerous road debris.)

The player rolls a number of d6’s equal to the sum of his
driving skill and the Speed score of his vehicle. (Speed here refers to an abstract number from
one (a tractor) to three (a motorcycle) that abstracts the acceleration and
handling of the vehicle. This idea comes
from Stars Without Number and Other Dust, in which vehicles can be improved by
adding to their speed score.) In games
where skills are usually between zero and four, this means that better drivers
in better cars are luckier than rabble in rat rods. So be it.

If our hero, (let’s call him Max), is an exceptional driver
(+4) and is driving a fast, black car with a speed of four, he will roll eight
d6’s at the beginning of each turn. Each
instance of doubles will enable Max to narrate a check or save by one of his
opponents. Failure on these checks or
saves usually means death or at least a crash that takes a vehicle out of the
scene. These crashes can provide the
means for another check or save, if the player has enough adrenaline double to accommodate
them. The purpose of these checks and saves is to create a sense that no one is
in control of the combat once it starts; NPC’s also get adrenaline dice and can
provoke other combatants to make checks and saves as well.

A faction of NPC’s would have only one adrenaline pool. If a boss with a +2 to driving in a ground
car +2 had four henchmen +1 on motorcycles +3, he would roll eight adrenaline
dice. Each NPC should not have his own
adrenaline pool; NPC’s of a type can contribute their common scores for driving
and Speed.

Since RPG’s often have player characters as passengers, they
passengers also get roll Adrenaline dice (which are a narrative device and not
a measure of anything.) Passengers can use their driving, Luck, Shooting, or
whatever else would contribute to the likelihood of violence in a vehicular battle
to total their adrenaline dice. A
passenger with a Luck save of +3 would roll three adrenaline dice.

These rules should be adaptable enough to use with many
kinds of games; the Speed scores of vehicles can be assigned on the spot. I welcome feedback on these rules, and I’d
love to hear from anyone who uses them in a game. Have a lovely day!

Friday, March 25, 2016

Use this table to make the
next vehicular encounter unique and more fun.
The bonuses listed were imagined as low (+1 for games like Other Dust, Traveller,
or FATE Acellerated or +2 for d20 mechanics) but they can be adjusted however
you like.

Thursday, March 3, 2016

1. Graffiti: Graffiti is a great way to make a ruin
feel alive. Its presence tells the PC’s that they are not the first to
encounter or explore this location, and that they need to be wary of whatever
recent visitors have left behind. Logic
says that there will be more graffiti near population centers and less if any
in remote areas. Lots of graffiti in a
desolate area should signal to PC’s that someone has taken pains to visit this
location. What made it worth the trip? Graffiti is denser near the ruin’s entrance
and dwindles as the PC’s explore. A
particularly spectacular or evocative room deep in the ruins might be the sight
of a pilgrimage, filled with tags, murals, symbols and messages.

Casual or degenerate cults may use graffiti
to document their presence, usually through poorly-drawn symbols or
iconography. Graffiti can also entice delvers to go deeper, promising
spectacular views or loot. It can also
attempt to ward away the foolhardy, warning explorers of lurking danger.

2. Standing, stagnant, water is always a
problem. It can range from ankle deep to
chest high, even completely drowning sections of the ruin. Water can obscure the floor and hide hazards
such as pitfalls, jagged debris and predators or scavengers. Stagnant water is also a vector for disease. Populate your ruin with blind, diseased aquatic
predators mutated from vermin, biotech or former residents.

3. Former (or current) residents or visitors have
left vehicles for safe passage through the ruins. These might be small boats, a cache of
security passes, hazmat or hard suits, or any other items that will provide
safe passage through the fungual dark. The vehicle might have a map, compass or
GPS on board. It might be moored next to a bit of string leading into the
darkness.

4. Ruins are often piled with accumulated litter. It
can be from the original occupants, from later occupants, or the ruin can have
been used as a dumping site. Garbage can
be difficult terrain, an obstacle to be overcome (rubble to be cleared; debris
to be burned; biomass to be…shooed), a poisonous or diseased hazard, a nasty
(or helpful) creature’s lair, and/or a source of hidden loot.5. Ruined or obsolete technology either found in
the ruins or pictured in the ruin’s archive gives clues to past history or
function of the ruin. Such ancient tech
might provide a source of loot or a discovery by opening a passage, revealing a
view, or opening communication with another site. Dead tech may be the McGuffin
of an adventure. Perhaps the PC’s have seen (or will see) an image or plan of
the tech in its pristine state, but it is now rusty, dusty and possibly
re-purposed.

6. Giant virtual or actual maps of locales as they
appeared at previous time are always fun. some information is valuable; some is
dangerous because of how things have changed since the maps were made. Large maps
can reveal the locations and original functions of other ruins, especially ones
with a related or complementary function.

7. Air becomes thinner, stinky, and stale…or
unexpectedly clean and fresh. Air can be
a toxic or insidious hazard, or simply provide ambiance.

10. Decay,
both of the physical building and the institutions that gave it meaning. Rust,
burnt-out, broken or malfunctioning light fixtures; faded, discolored or
peeling paint; dust--nano and mundane; broken or malfunctioning holo-projectors
or screens; long-dead security measures; doors marked "restricted
access" left open; emptied closets or other evidence of looting or flight.
If these are absent, this indicates some agency (nano-scrubbers, maintenance
automatons, a cargo cult) is keeping the ruin fresh either to continue its
suitability for a defunct purpose or preparing it for a new one.

4.Ritual. The raiders need to put paid to your transgressions,
whether you know about them or not. (turf protection, initiation rites, adulthood
ceremony, religious sacrifice, food for the Beast, status seeking, rule
enforcement (taboos, boundaries, treaties, etiquette, tolls) This result has a
lot of role-play potential in it, so don’t be afraid to let the solution to
this problem be diplomacy, or even a simple apology.